What’s Your Business’ iPhone Strategy?
Posted by Spencer Cobb | Sunday, December 14th, 2008 | General Musings, Mobile Marketing | No Comments
Unless you’ve just gotten home from a 6 month safari or fishing trip where you had no exposure to media, you are probably aware that the iPhone from Apple is nothing short of a social and technological phenomenon. Earlier this year Apple’s iPhone surpassed RIM’s blackberry in number of units sold per quarter to become the best selling smart phone in America. Apple sold nearly 7 Million iPhones for Q3 08, bringing the total number of iphones on the market to 10M.
This number pales in comparison to the 250 Million non iphones on the market. However, research shows of the 250Million non iPhones out there, their users download 3 million applications a week. Apple’s iphone generates 14 Million application downloads each week! This article discusses the $100 Million iFund and the prediction that their will be as many as 50 Million iPhones on the market by end of next year.
The numbers don’t lie, but if you still are not a believer, look around you the next time you are on a train, in a doctors office or at a shopping mall: chances are the guy or gal on the phone with the smile on their face is proudly using an iPhone. IPhone users I know are ‘in love’ with the design and functionality of the device and love the ready availability of the itunes application store.
So this begs the question for you, Mr or Mrs business owner: whats your iPhone strategy?
We here are m3rcury are currently working with a couple of different companies to help them with their iphone application development and marketing strategy. We plan to use at least one as a case study soon so check back often. Could your business benefit from a mobile presence? Would you like to advertise to 10 million or so iPhone users out there? Would your business benefit from the latest GPS functionality in mobile phones so your users could easily find your brick & mortar store front?
Contact us today for help in formulating your business’ mobile marketing strategy.
What should I blog about next?
Posted by Spencer Cobb | Friday, November 7th, 2008 | General Musings | No Comments
How many times have you asked yourself this daunting question? If there’s one bit of constant feedback I get from talking with people who use blogging as part of their business (or personal) communication, its their dread of the grind of coming up with new, fresh content. How many of us haven’t felt that pressure? I know I have. Heck, that’s what brought me to this post. Its easy to begin feeling overwhelmed, so I thought I’d provide some ideas to consider that might help you find topics to blog on and keep your blog fresh.
I’ve seen many personal/individual’s blogs where someone discusses any and every current event just to try keep content fresh, but from a business’ point of view, a blog is one of the best ways you have of starting a conversation with your prospects and customers. Sure, your post can and should have good, insightful information that makes it unique and provides some value to your readers like good tips or how to guides etc. However, try posing a question which elicits an answer from your readers which other readers can comment on. This can teach you a lot about your business, your products, how your brand and message is being received and so much more.
One idea you might try is asking your peers, customers or even prospects to write a guest post. As you’ve seen already, we do this here at m3rcury. We plan to have several of our partners and peers guest blog pretty frequently about their specific area of knowledge and experience. Not only does this provide excellent insight into specific topics for our readers and make it more interesting, but also takes some of the pressure off of me to be fabulously creative and come up with original topics to expound upon.
Another great idea I wanted to share I picked up from Ellie Mirman at Hubspot, which is a blog that is just chock full of great advice. She suggests interviewing a thought leader or peer for your blog. You can read about it here.
( Note this would also make a great podcast. So check back soon for tips on easy, high quality podcasting).
For more tips on blogging, check out this quick video from Problogger.net.
What would your customers say if they blogged about your business?
Domains and Web Hosting - Choosing a Vendor
Posted by Milt Webb | Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Websites - Design and Development | No Comments
Back when I started creating websites I used to offer domain name registation and web hosting in addition to my other services. I don’t do that anymore. After working with a number of clients where the original designer was no longer available, or proved to be unsatifactory, I quickly learned this was not in the best interest of the client.
In many cases, the designer did not register the domain name in the clients name and as a result the client had no access to their own domain name records. If the designer were also providing hosting of the website it became very difficult to move the website to a reliable hosting services and make the necessary changes to the domain name records.
What I recommend to all clients — especially those creating their first website — is register your own domain name using one of many resources available, such as GoDaddy, Register.com, or Network Solutions. I register domain name with GKG.NET — my personal favorite. I would also recommend that you not host your website with the same company. Keep everything separate — here why.
Suppose you register your domain name with GoDaddy and you decide to also use them for hosting the website. Seems like a logical thing to do — one location — one invoice. What if you have a performance problem with the hosting, or later discover you need additional hosting services they don’t provide. You now have to find another hosting vendor, move the website, setup the mail accounts with the new vendor — and then discontinue the original hosting service but leaving the domain name registration with GoDaddy. A lot of work…
You have more flexibility by registering the domain with one vendor and using a separate vendor for hosting the site. Companies that offer great rates and service for registering domains don’t always follow through on the hosting part of the offering. Also, be aware that many hosting providers offer incredibly-low rates and this is not always a bargain. Often times the low rates are achieved by overselling server space and resources and limited the amount of support available.
The important thing to remember is to do this yourself — you shouldn’t let the web designer do it.
In case you’re interested, my preferred web hosting provider is Pair Networks www.pair.com — that’s where this site is hosted.
An introduction…
Posted by Spencer Cobb | Thursday, October 16th, 2008 | General Musings | No Comments
A little about me…
I’m award winning strategic sales and marketing professional with over 10 years of successful experience selling internet technology products and services to the Fortune 1000. I’ve also won awards as a producer and video editor and have experience in both large and small budget film, video and audio productions in various roles.
As the scale and relevance of audio and video content on the internet have grown exponentially, I’ve found my skill set makes me uniquely qualified to advise businesses on their content dissemination strategies.
Contact us today to discuss your company’s strategic vision for using content to enhance your business goals.
Why Hot Leads Turn Cold on your Website
Posted by Francesca Yates | Thursday, October 16th, 2008 | Content Writing | No Comments
You’re not alone. Most small to medium-size businesses on the Internet don’t hire a professional writer to create the content of their websites. The fact is, five or ten years ago, it really wouldn’t have mattered. Just about everybody had amateurish sites. The fact that you even had a website was impressive enough.